Teaching Caselettes
The Institute regularly partners with organizations at Duke and beyond to provide workshops on various topics, including the Ethics of Engagement, a required training program for all students preparing for national and international civic engagement projects through DukeEngage.
These case studies were used as teaching tools in Institute workshops.
Fair Accommodation (2011)
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The coordinator of a civic engagement program must decide whether or not to acquiesce to the demands of the programs drivers for better hotel accommodations, when doing so would clearly challenge local cultural norms.
Key words: civic engagement, community service, norms, cultural pluralism, moral pluralism, fairness
Scholarship Application (2011)
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A student intern at an NGO that assists ethnic-minority groups is asked by his supervisor to pass off one individual’s scholarship application for another. Other interns in the NGO office help the student decide what to do.
Key words: civic engagement, community service, fairness, norms, collaboration
Roles and Responsibilities (2011)
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A student interning at a domestic non-profit is frustrated with having to assume the tasks of a receptionist, rather than working on the projects for which she had planned.
Key words: civic engagement, community service, collaboration, fairness
Kakamega, Kenya (2010)
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A student working for an American volunteer-based organization in Kenya must decide how best to allocate the funds she has raised for her project.
Keywords: civic engagement, community service, individuals, community, responsibility
La Carpio, Costa Rica: Compromise (2010)
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A student working in La Carpio, a Costa Rican slum, faces pressure from a local church congregation doing charity work in the same area.
Keywords: civic engagement, community partner, volunteer, compromise
La Carpio, Costa Rica: Friendship (2010)
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A student working in a Costa Rican slum community must decide how to respond to a request for financial assistance from a local woman she has befriended.
Keywords: civic engagement, aid, frienship, justice, mercy
The Giving Tree (2009)
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This case study examines the ethics of altruism through the lens of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. Is altruism always good? Do moral agents ever truly behave altruistically?
Keywords: altruisum, egoism, love, wellbeing, good, happiness, selfless
Lincoln and Thoreau (2008)
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Abraham Lincoln and Henry David Thoreau were both morally opposed to slavery, but expressed their opposition in different ways.
Keywords: hypocrisy, integrity, moralist, moderate, obedience, conscience, law
Mayor Carcetti (2008)
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In Season Four of HBO’s The Wire, Mayor Tommy Carcetti must choose between his long-term political ambitious and the short-term needs of his city.
Keywords: hypocrisy, integrity, moralist, moderate, political ethics, ambition
McDougald Terrace, Durham (2008)
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A student working in an academic and mentoring program in a Durham, North Carolina, housing project must decide how to respond to a disruptive 6-year-old whose mother needs the childcare the program provides to stay in her own job.
Keywords: civic engagement, community service, urban poverty, applied ethics
Muhuru Bay, Kenya (2008)
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An American student at a civic engagement site is faced with the choice of whether, against the express wishes of the community, to take an HIV-positive child on a dangerous overnight drive to a medical clinic.
Keywords: study abroad, civic engagement, community service, AIDS, applied ethics
Product (RED) (2008)
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Product (RED) encourages private corporations to donate money to public health organizations in developing countries and has raised a great deal of money for Africa, yet the program is not without its critics.
Keywords: hypocrisy, integrity, moralist, moderate, charity, profit, philanthropy, incentives